Joseph Bouchardy
Joseph Bouchardy was a French playwright and engraver who gained prominence in the 19th century, particularly known for his melodramatic works. Initially starting his career as an engraver, Bouchardy transitioned to writing for the theater at the age of twenty-six, collaborating with fellow writer Eugène Deligny at the boulevard theater Ambigu-Comique. During the years from 1836 to 1840, he produced numerous vaudevilles, short comedic plays, often working with other writers. However, he found notable success in the melodrama genre in the 1840s and 1850s, crafting plays that resonated with audiences as theaters moved towards long-running productions.
Bouchardy's melodramas are characterized by complex plots filled with hidden identities, revelations, and a clear distinction between good and evil. His works typically featured historical settings with fictional characters navigating tyrannical oppression, culminating in the triumph of a heroic figure. Some of his notable plays include "Gaspardo le pêcheur," "Le Sonneur de Saint-Paul," and "Les Orphelines d'Anvers." Despite his early success and substantial income, Bouchardy's popularity waned by the late 1860s, and today, his contributions to theater are largely forgotten, though they provide valuable insight into the popular drama of mid-19th century Paris.
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Joseph Bouchardy
Writer
- Born: March 1, 1810
- Birthplace: Paris, France
- Died: May 25, 1870
- Place of death: Châtenay, near Paris, France
Biography
Joseph Bouchardy began his career as an engraver. He also wrote a number of articles on theater for the magazine Le Monde dramatique. At the age of twenty-six, he turned to writing for the stage, in collaboration with Eugène Deligny for the boulevard theater Ambigu-Comique. Between 1836 and 1840, he continued to write many pieces, most of them vaudevilles (short comedies) and most in collaboration with other writers.
Bouchardy became known and successful for the melodramas he wrote alone through the 1840’s and 1850’s. He arrived on the scene as theaters began to abandon the repertory system in favor of long runs. That meant that he was able to earn a very solid living off his plays up to the end of his life. Although he continued to produce his unique kind of melodrama until the late 1860’s, his popularity had diminished considerably.
Bouchardy saw himself as a romantic inspired by the example of Victor Hugo. However, his melodramas have more kinship with the work of René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt, who indeed was the father of the melodrama in France. Even though Bouchardy preferred to call his plays drames (dramas) rather than melodramas, they bear a remarkable likeness to Pixérécourt’s melodramas. Typically, these plays take a historical setting, but the major characters are fictional while well-known kings and nobles provide background to the worlds portrayed. The plots are highly complex, with an abundance of reversals and discoveries, hidden identities, stunning revelations, and villainous machinations. Action-packed prologues often precede the main plot, which may take place years later. The conflict arises out of tyrannical or vicious subjugation of poor and defenseless characters whose salvation is finally assured by a providential hero. These plays were spectacular largely through the flamboyant characterizations he provided for the actors rather than elaborate scenery or special effects. Indeed, Bouchardy held to the old system of stock interiors every theater had in its storage: typical settings included the prison cell, the palace hall, the humble hovel, and so forth.
His most successful plays paid him very well. They had long runs of several months with revivals in the provinces and translations into other languages. Among them one can certainly count Gaspardo le pêcheur (Gaspardo the fisherman), Le Sonneur de Saint-Paul (the bell ringer of Saint Paul), Lazare le pâtre (Lazarus the shepherd), Les Orphelines d’Anvers (the orphan girls of Antwerp), and Jean le cocher (Jean the coachman). Gaspardo is a good example of Bouchardy’s style. It is based loosely on events in Milan, Italy, in the fifteenth century and it depicts a popular uprising that leads to the usurpation of the evil duke. Other plays portray a populace rising up in revolt in historical settings in various countries such as England and Sweden. Good and evil are always sharply and clearly distinguished from the beginning and the triumph of good is always the predictable end.
Bouchardy’s plays, both his early vaudevilles and his later melodramas, provide us with a good insight into the popular drama of Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century. Today, they are by and large forgotten. However, Bouchardy managed throughout his life to maintain a very respectable income as playwright.